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My name is Peter Danckwerts. My home page, which is a work in progress, is here:www.danckwerts.co.uk. I live and work in Richmond upon Thames, Surrey, England. I am a publisher and writer at my own publishing company, Tiger of the Stripe.

Hampton Court Flower Show

Perhaps I'm just an old curmudgeon but it seems to me that the Royal Horticultural Society's flower show at Hampton Court Palace encapsulates all that is worst in modern gardening. I'm glad I managed to see all this on my television set rather than making a trip there, especially as the RHS has a history of trapping people in the carpark for hours.

Rather as the Turner Prize has dispensed with talent (and indeed art) in favour of brain-dead gimickry, the Hampton Court flower show has largely relegated flowers to a secondary role supporting hard landscaping, rust and an almost complete lack of imagination.

I particularly disliked the Russian Museum Garden which is completely charmless and utterly fails to evoke the spirit of St Petersburg. The Azorean Garden reminds me of nothing so much as tiramasu. Riot of Colour and Do Not Adjust Your Set are hymns in praise of the subjugation of nature by urban grunge.